"Are you girls making any arrangements for the Saturday night club dance?" demanded that lady. Miss Aurelia was fresh in a white dress with cuffs and collar of intricate embroidery. She wore a chain of colorless coral beads. "This dance will not be like the others 'in sweaters and tennis shoes,'" she warned them. "Mrs. Spoyd has been working very hard to get the young people to appear well at the dances. Now your frock, Sard, needs certain things done to it. Mrs. Spoyd thinks you dress too old."
"Oh, gracious!" Sard threw out her hands in impatience. "My yellow frock is good for a year yet. Don't bother, dear," she begged.
"Now, Sard, I'm not sure," Miss Aurelia demurred. "Last time you wore it I thought—they wear them so short now. Shouldn't you take it up a little? But I don't know. Of course, Mrs. Spoyd thinks—I—she—you——" Minga interfered.
"Come in and look at my pretty little robe," she invited sweetly. "Such a jazzy little affair! Straight off the Avenue."
Minga held up a small bunch of color. "Perky, isn't it?" she wanted to know. "A little daring, as the lady said, but of course, if that's what people are wearing——" Minga made a face of sweet inquiry.
The twin-petaled blue tunic with its girdle and shoulder straps of flame color had two jeweled butterflies, one planted below Minga's little thin chest, the other at the base of her supple back. This confection could have been blown away with a sigh. Miss Aurelia heaved that sigh.
"Of course, nowadays that cut under the arm is what they all wear—very popular. Dearest," asked Miss Aurelia plaintively, "if it should grow cold and you wanted an—er—under body or guimpe of any kind, I'm sure I could lend you one. And you wear so little underneath——"
Minga, holding the dress close up to her, hung her dark curly head on one side. "Rather nippy," she remarked with satisfaction. "You think it shows too much of me? Oh, no," comforted Minga, "there's really quite a good deal of me that doesn't show, but don't worry, Miss Aurelia, nobody will be thinking about that. People aren't as curious about how we're made as they used to be. We all know that we've got arms and legs and chests and shoulders and ribs and things. It isn't interesting any more!"
Saying this Minga unwittingly put her finger on what is half truth, that is, that it is the Puritanical people of the world who emphasize the harm that is done by vulgar thinking and dressing. The prudish people think more about vulgarity than the vulgar themselves. The way to kill such things is to ignore. The fashion, when it has become a fashion, ceases to be notable, or even challenging. But its dubious life is prolonged by those who seek to curb it.
Miss Aurelia, with many murmured doubts and misgivings, now took Sard's frock out of its tissue paper and pasteboard box. With it went a violet sash and violet slippers that Minga scrutinized rather disparagingly. "She ought to have scarlet slippers and scarlet stockings with that yellow."